NUMB | D. MALFOY {EDITING}

viii. amortentia

« AMORTENTIA »

                  

Anastasia flushed the moment she stepped inside the Potions classroom with bags under her eyes and a sad smile. When her eyes met with a pair of grey ones, she had her cheeks completely red.

Like the other day, the tension between the pair was palpable. Draco had admired her from the moment she walked past his table and seated in the other side of the room, not glancing up at him.

The previous night, Anastasia had freaked out at the thought of having feelings for the blonde boy.  Inside her head, Draco Malfoy was forbidden and she had repeated it to herself from the very moment the Dark Mark was placed in her arm. Maybe because the incoherent idea of blaming him for what was happening to her, but she couldn't tell anyone about that: because a small part of her heart had suspected that he probably told Voldemort how intelligent she was, otherwise how would he know?

Of course Draco was angry at her accusations, and he had the right. For several minutes, he repeated Anastasia he had nothing to do with how the Dark Lord knew about her. But Anastasia didn't listen him once, she was too consumed throwing him insults to even process what he was saying.

Eventually, he got tired and started yelling as well. Both of them gaining a lesson from McGonagall reminding them the Astronomy Tower wasn't for couples to snog and fight. That caused a huge wave of gossip to take over the Great Hall the next morning, but in that time Draco and Anastasia couldn't bring themselves to look at each other without throwing jinxes.

"In this particular day, we are going to learn how to prepare a perfect potion of Amortentia." Slughorn happily exclaimed.

The students groaned at the mention of the love potion but no one was brave enough to tell professor Slughorn they weren't interested in learning that; he was too excited explaining the process that the whole class decided to stay silent.

"This is rubbish." Anastasia placed a few strings of hair behind her ears as she looked down at her potions book.

"What is rubbish?" Ron asked, looking at her with pursed lips.

"This." She said, signaling at the amortentia chapter in their book. "I highly doubt that we are going to use this." Harry laughed quietly, his eyes glued to his book.

"Now, you shall begin." Slughorn said and Anastasia was suddenly freaked out at the thought of not knowing what the professor said.

"Here, I knew you weren't listening so I brought your ingredients." Hermione smiled at her. Anastasia kindly thanked her and began working.

Occasionally, Draco would look up from his cauldron to check on the girl in front of him. He was angry, but that didn't stop him to be worried about the well-being of Anastasia, more now that she had lost practically everything.

Surprisedly, the students started working in silence. The only sound they could hear was the distant whispers of certain group of friends, but Anastasia was thankful that she could work in peace without nothing bothering her and helping her to prepare the potion well. After all, she had her heart broken from the letter her parents sent her the day before.

That morning, it took everything for her to leave her bed. She felt as if the little life she had inside was urging her to keep living until it was too late, but that small voice in her mind reminded her about the events of the other night and how much her parents hated her for what she did.